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Strike Up the Band!
The Legacy of
Patrick S.Gilmore
* by Jere T. Humphreys*

Put

i.t sarsfleldGilmore (tEzg-gz)was one of the most influentialband

conductors in American history, second in importance only to John philip
Sousa.It is entirely fitting, as we approach the Sesquicentennialof American
public school music education (celebrating the period from lg3g-lggg), to
review the contributions of the man revered as "the father of the concert band
in the United States."r
Gilmore began his musical ca.reer as a band cornetist in his native lreland.
He then joined a British Army band that was transferred to canada when he
was seventeen.A short time later he moved to Boston, where his fust job was
with the music publisher-dealerJohn p. ordway. Gilmore subsequenilyopened
his own music store. During the l8b0s, he became well known as a cornetist
Jere T.Humphreysis an associateprcfessorot musiceducationat ArizonaStateUniversity,Tempe

and conductor,and conducted several Massachusetts bands, including the Boston Brigade and the
Charlestown, Sufolk, and Salem
brass bands.
Gilmore's Grand Boston Band
In 1859in Boston, Gilmore organized his own band, serving as conductor, music director, and business manager.
At the outset of the CMI War, the
band enlisted in the Union Army
with the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteers, and Gilmore was
appointed Bandmaster-Generaland
Chief Musician of the State of Massachusetts. After a short tour of
duty that included an assignment
with General Ambrose Everett
Burnside's North Carolina expedition, the band was mustered out of
the army in 1862.Gilmore then returned to Boston, where he continued to develop and promote the
band, which eventually became
known as Gilmore's Grand Boston
Band.
Impressario
Gilmore's abilities as a performer
and conductor were substantial,
but he is best remembered for his
activities as a promoter, impressario, and showman. He became,
unquestionably, "one of the most
picturesque figures in American
musical history."z
Gilmore seems to have been influenced early on by the popular
and flamboyant French orchestra
conductor Louis Antoine Jullien,
who performed with his orchestra
in the United States in the 1850s.
The orchestra was one of the best
to perform in this counfiry during
that era, and Jullien himself was a
superb showman who decorated
the stagewith red and gold, dressed
magnificently, conducted with a
jeweled baton, and seated himself
g-'"y, John pht;lipSousa;American
i-p"J-l
Phenome
non(Newyork.Appteton-Centurv
Crofts.
1973).4
"Bandmaster
2. GeorgeR. Leighton,
Gilmore,"
TheEtude52,no.4.April1934,2.17.
24

MEJ/October'87

between numbers on a golden
throne. One of his most popqlax
pieces wa^s "The Firemen's Quadrille," complete with a fireworks
display and a brigade of firemen
who deluged the aisles with water.
Inspired by Jullien, Gilrnore
staged his fust musical extravaganza in New Orleans near the end of
the war in 1864.This show, which
included 5,000 singers, 500 bandsmen, a large trumpet-and-drum
corps, and a battery of cannon, featured perforrnances of Gilmore's
composition "When Johnny Comes
Marching Home." Afterwards, Gilmore turned his attention to the
two massive music festivals that
made him famous: the National
Peace Jubilee of 1869 and the
World PeaceJubilee of 1872.
The National PeaceJubilee was a
five-day celebration held in Boston
in the summer of 1869.The festival
was supported professionally by
Boston Conservatory director Julius Eichberg and Boston orchestra
conductor Carl Zerrahn, and flnancially by contributions from music
publishers, an organ builder, and
several local hotels and merchants.
A building designed to seat 50,000
and the largest pipe organ built to
date in the United States were constructed for the occasion. The performing cast consisted of 20,000
singing schoolchildren from the
Boston public schools, a chorus of
10,000members of music clubs and
choral societies from throughout
the nation, six bands (with a specially constructed 25-foot bass
drum), a 1,000-memberorchestra,
and a battery of cannon. Discount
railway rates were negotiated for
those attending the jubilee, and a
cough drop manufacturer even
gave each participating chorister a
box of cough drops. The musical
program included renditions of the
Bach-Gounod.Aue Maria by a soprano soloist accompaniedby 200
violinists, and many other works by
major composers.The new auditorium was fllled to capacity for every
performance. Among the audience

were Oliver Wendell Holmes, who
composed a "national anthem," the
elderly Lowell Mason, who served
a.s guest of honor, and President
Ulysses S. Grant and his Cabinet.
The success of the National
Peace Jubilee spurred Gilmore to
attempt an even larger festival: the
eighteen-day World Peace Jubilee
and International Musical Festival
held in Boston in 1872to celebrate
the end of the Franco-PrussianWar.
A 100,000-seatbuilding and a new
organ were constructed (the auditorium and organ built for the 1869
jubilee having been destroyed by a
storm). Johann Strauss and his Viennese orchestra of fifty-six members appeared on the program, as
did several famous bands: England's Grenadier Guards, France's
Garde R6publicaine band, Prussia's band of Kaiser Ftanz's Grenadiers, the Irish National Band,
and the United StatesMarine Band.
Other attractions included renditions of Verdi's "Anvil Chorus" by a
2,000-memberorchestra, a 20,000member chorus, a battery of cannon, and 100 Boston fremen performing on anvils. Although Gilmore realized a handsomeprofit on
both the 1869 and 1872 jubilees,
attendance was not what he had
expected at the latter event, so he
once again turned his attention to
developing his own professional
band.
Bandmaster extraordinaire
When Gilmore began his career
as a bandmaster in the 1850s,most
American military and community
bands were brass bands. This instrumentation had been made possible by the introduction of keyed
and valved brass instruments earlier in the century. Beginning with
his Boston Brigade Band in 1859,
Gilmore followed the lead of European band conductors and added
large numbers of woodwinds to the
band's instrumentation. In 1873,
when he assumed control of what
was to become his last and most
famous band-the New York Twen-

A.

(r*

ty-second Regiment Band-he added even more woodwinds. By the
time Gilmore's band towed Europe
in 1878, it had grown to sixty-six
pieces, about one-third of which
were clarinets, one-third other
woodwinds, and one-third brasses.
Gilmore's reintroduction of woodwinds helped standardize concert
band instrumentation, and this in
turn facilitated the publication of
band music, both original and transcribed. The popularization of
woodwinds as the backbone of concert band instrumentation wa^sone
of his most significant achieve.
ments.
Beginning in 1873, Gilmore's
band presented an averageof more
than one cencert per day for the
next nineteen years. Some highIights included a relatively modest
event (300 bandsmen and 1,000
choristers) held in Chicago in 1873
to celebrate rebuilding efforts folIowing the great fire, and the American centennialcelebration in 1876,
during which he shared the spotIight with French composer-conductor JacquesOffenbach and popular American orchestra conductor
Theodore Thomas.
Gilmore's band was considered
to be one of the best concert bands
in the world during the 1870s and
1880s.He earned this distinction by
hiring the best professional musicians he could find, including several European orchestral musicians
and such famous performers as
trombonist Frederick N. Innes, sanophonist E. A. Lefebre, and cornetists Matthew Arbuckle, Jules Lely,
and Herbert L. Clarke, and by insisting upon the highest performance
standards from the band.
Patrick Gilmore and his band
were at their height of popularity
when he died unexpectedly on September 24, 1892. Two days later,
John Philip Sousa paid tribute to
his elder colleague during his professional band's first concert. when
he "arranged and played as the first
number ever played publicly by my
band, a composition of Gilmore's,
26

MEJ/October'87

'The

Voice of a Departed Soul."'3
Soon thereafter, fourteen of Gilmore's ninety-nine players joined
Sousa, and the Gilmore group disbanded. Gilmore's death thwarted
Sousa'splanned competition for supremacy of the professional band
world, leaving Sousa the undisputed leader.
Gilmore's legacy
Although Gilmore achieved most
of his fame from his festivals, he
made his greatest and most lasting
contribution to bands and music
education through his influence on
other professional bandmasters
and conductors. These men and
women in turn inspired the formation of countless municipal, industrial, school, and college bands in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The American band
movement eventually became so
popular that it, like the singing
school movement of an even earlier
era, came to be fully supported by
the public schools.
Given Gilmore's inlluence, it is
not surprising that many of today's
school bands bear his stamp. The
modern American band movement
is characterized by high performance standards, flashy promotional
activities, a patriotic and militaristic flavor, a "motherhood and apple
pie" image, and strong ties to the
American middle class,all of which
were characteristic of Gilmore's
personal life and caxeer.
Patrick Gilmore, who personified
the American band movement, deserves more credit than he usually
receives for his importance as an
innovative educator with hig musical standards:
The passingof Patrick SarsfieldGilmore... saddenedthe musicalworld.
Mr. Gilmore had organizedand gathered togetherthe very best woodwind
and brassplayersof both Europeand

3. John Philip Sousa, Marching Atong; Recoilec,
tions of Me.n, Women. and Muslc (Boston: Hale.
C u s h m a n& F l i n t .1 9 2 8 ) .1 2 7

America. He had gone into the highways and byways of the land, playing
Wagnerand Liszt, and other gfeat composers,in places where their music was
absolutely unknown, and their natnes
scarcely more than a twice-repeated
sound.a
Most importantly, he should be
honored for his key role in the
development of public school band

programs:

Touring the country with his band
after the War. . . , [Gilmore] introducec
the hinterlands to the bassoon,the bass
horn, and Beethoven.In his wake, amateur bands sprang up. Bandstandsof his
era still remain in some towns. Following his footsteps,John Philip Sousaand
scores of other band leaders covered
the country with crack concert bands.
That so many school kids play in a bancl
today is largely because of Patrick Gilmore.5
Selected readings
Cipolla,Frank J. "The Music of patrick S.
Gilmore."TheInstrummtalist J2. no. g.
April 1978,64-65.
Darlington,Marwood.Irish Orpheus:The
Life of Patrick S. Gilmore, Bandmaster
Extraordinary. Philadelphia: OlivierManey-Klein,1950.
Gilmore, Patrick S. History of the Nationat
Peace Jttbilee and Great Music Festiual
(1869). Bpston:Lee and Shepard,1871.
Goldman,Richard F. The Concert Band,.New
York: Rinehart & Company, 1946.
Goldman, Richard F. The Wind. Band. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 196^.
Grose, Gerald, "Patrick S. Gilmore's Influence on the Developmentof the American
Concert Band." Journal of Band Research
6, no.l, Fall 1969,ll-16.
Larkin, Curtis H. "Gilmore and Sousa:As I
Remember Them." The Intntmmtalist 3,
no. 4, March-April 1949,38J9.
Leighton, George R. "Bandmaster Gilmore."
The Etud,e52, no.4, April 1934,ZIT-ZIB.
Schonberg, Harold C. "Jubilee Maker: patrick Gilmore and His Gigantic Music Festiv als."Musica,LDig est 29,no. 10,June I g47,
8, 34-35.
Schwartz, H. W. Bands oJ America. Garden
City, New York: Doubleday& Company,
1957.
Sousa;John Phllip. Marching Along: RecolIections of Men, Womm, qnd Music. Boston: Hale,Cushman& Flint. 1928.
4 S o u s a .1 3 3
5 D o r o nK A n t r i m ." T h e l m m o r t a,l p a t A m e r i c a , s
Super-Salesmanof Musrc," The Etude 5g. no 1.
J a n u a r y1 9 4 5 ,2 4